Tom Evans 11/1983

November 18, 1983 – Tom Evans was born on June 5th 1947. The sad and tragic story of Evans and his fellow bandmate Pete Hamm is amplified by the greed grabbing conditions that the music industry has always been plagued by; ruthless and dishonest.

Tom Evans was a very talented bassist, guitarist, singer, songwriter, who started his music career as a member of “The Inbeateens” in 1961. With the growing recognition of the Beatles, he soon progressed to a Liverpool mod/soul group called Them Calderstones.

In 1967, he joined a Welsh band called The Iveys who changed their name to Badfinger in 1969, while under contract with the Beatles’ owned Apple Records. Paul McCartney gave the group a boost by offering them his song “Come and Get It” which he produced for the band. It became a featured track for the film The Magic Christian, which starred Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers and put Badfinger on the map.

They followed up with major successes in 1970 and 71 with titles like “No Matter What,” “Day After Day,” and “Baby Blue”, each featuring some of Toms vocals, songwriting capabilities, background harmony and dual leads. His high-career moment came with the composition “Without You”, co-written with bandmate Peter Ham. The song became a No.1 hit worldwide for Harry Nilsson and has since become one of the top worldwide evergreens, covered by hundreds of performers.

Evans & Joey Molland of Badfinger argued on the telephone, reportedly about the publishing royalty of the song “Without You.” Following the argument, Tom sadly hanged himself in the garden at his home at age 36 on November 18, 1983 at age 36, in an eerie replay of fellow band mate Pete Ham’s 1975 death scene. Marianne Evans, his wife, was quoted in a documentary as having stated that “Tommy said ‘I want to be where Pete is. It’s a better place than down here’ ….”